Healing Before Empowering
Christianity is good for both men and women, even when it does not empower us. Americans often carry the illusion that empowering a person is always a good thing, but a moment of reflection clears up that optimistic fantasy. Bad people should not be empowered and good people already are.
Jesus Christ provides a way for men and women to become what they were created to be. His followers, Christians, are not so much empowered as healed. The healed soul of a Christian man or woman will grow, but out of adoration for God and not as the result of some religious form of pep talk or from a church service selling self-esteem.
Sadly humans as they are today are not what they should be. We are marred–and this applies to every area of human personhood. Humanity needs to hear women’s voices and men’s voices, but before empowering these voices to speak, both men and women need to be restored.
Doing so includes both encouraging difference and equality.
